


in this or any other world

by evilythedwarf



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-29
Updated: 2011-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the woman turns you up inside like you didn’t believe possible, and she takes hold like you were sure wasn’t never gonna happen. [mal/inara, one more chance]</p>
            </blockquote>





	in this or any other world

It catches you unawares, the panic.

Inara makes busy settling the kitchen, and then helping Kaylee around till the kid can move by herself, and then she makes tea for Zoe, who never drinks it. She helps Simon in the infirmary, and she even paints Serenity’s hull with a love and patience you didn’t really think she possessed, not towards the ship itself as much as the people in it.

She does a million and one things round the ship until there are no more things to do, and that’s when it hits you. She could leave. She could ask you to drop her off and it wouldn’t be nothing but a few days’ travel. But then you notice that she keeps finding new stuff to do. You find yourself watching her, waiting, trying to xplain why it is that she does what she does. Why she’s running around trying to do things she shouldn’t, like hanging with Kaylee and listening to her prattling bout the engine, or sitting quietly with River as the girl hums Serenity’s song. She’s out there, in the ship, like her own little shuttle doesn’t hold the same attraction anymore.

Before – before she left /you made her leave/she disappeared for the first time – she was always holed up in that little space of hers, that out of bound too damn corified set that didn’t belong nowhere near your ship, and she stayed out of your way but now she’s all over the place and you can’t take it anymore. You can’t think about how one day soon she’ll leave again.

Except, well ‘cept maybe she’ll stay. If you ask. She might stay if you ask her, but she won’t be the one to talk, you know her that much, at least. The woman turns you up inside like you didn’t believe possible, and she takes hold like you were sure wasn’t never gonna happen, but she’s as proud as they come and you’re the one who has to swallow up your pride and ask and see.

You find her in the corridors, nowhere near her shuttle and you tell her, should be a day’s travel, returning her to her girls. She nods, looking unsure for all that her face is always a mask of perfect composure, and then she gives you the best answer you could have hoped for and this girl, this woman who’s as mucha part of your crew as you, she smiles and it’s absolutely most beautiful thing in this or any other world.

 

♥


End file.
